


As Good As I Once Was

by EdgarAllenPoet



Series: Lucretia's Volumes [My Balance Fics] [4]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Bar Room Brawl, Gen, IPRE, Kinda, Light Petting, M/M, Masturbation, Memories, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, Public Sex, Team as Family, Threesome - F/M/M, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 01:52:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18216608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: Magnus reflects on his past misdemeanors, on temporary lovers and long lasting friends, on trouble he’s gotten himself into.  He comes to terms with growing older and refusing to grow up.





	As Good As I Once Was

**Author's Note:**

> Y'know that song by Toby Keith? 
> 
> Before anyone goes thinking I'm a geezer-- this is all written based off of complaints I've heard from older people. Magnus is mid-fifties in this fic, while your wonderful author here is still shiny and dumb and 22.

It had been a long time since Magnus had gone out on a Friday. He was living a little slower these days, had been since the apocalypse, but this was even a new level compared to the original settle down. When everything had first shook out and they got the chance to live boring, ordinary lives again, they didn’t last more than a few months before Tres Horny Boys started itching for action. One of them would reach out first, but all of them would answer the call, gravitating towards each other and towards the adventurer’s lifestyle they all sorely missed. 

But that was when Magnus was young and dumb and full of unbridled energy. Back when war injuries weren’t enough to slow him down, when the old aches would set in sometimes in the evenings, but weren’t anything that a fantasy Advil or a hot bath couldn’t take care of. Magnus used to invent things to keep him busy, adopting animals and taking on projects and volunteering himself to do handyman jobs for his neighbors and family without anyone even asking him.

His days of rolling out of bed at the crack of dawn after a night of drinking to tend to his chickens were over, however. These days he settled down earlier, woke up a little later, and felt the consequences of his actions for far longer than really ought to be allowed by nature. 

This evening out, for example, would be felt all the way through Sunday. It was worth it though, he told himself, as he threw back the last of his beer and regarded the shelves of glistening amber bottles before him. Shots were probably a mistake. Magnus felt like making mistakes tonight. 

“What’s your poison?” a voice accompanying a sudden hand on his shoulder asked, and Magnus turned to find a pair of deep brown eyes, red painted lips, and well-worn skin. Her pointed ears suggested half-elf, and the identical middle aged half-elf standing behind her suggested they were twins. 

“Just about anything if we’re being honest. I’m pretty loose with preferences.” 

A smirk spread across the woman’s lips and she invited herself closer, sitting on the barstool next to him and leaning in close. The other crossed behind him and sat to his left, and he was officially caged in. He couldn’t say he minded. 

“Looks like you’re partial to horse piss, actually,” she said, knocking her bottle against his empty one. 

He chuckled good naturedly. “Couldn’t afford to have taste in college. Accidentally gave myself a liking for the stuff.” 

“Happens to the best of us.” 

Their conversation was ordinary, but their body language seemed to be suggesting something. Magnus was wildly amused by the deja vu, by the parallels between this situation and a similar one from his youth. He thought about long fingers and shiny hair and cat-like eyes scoping him out from across the room before dragging him off into the corner. They’d been so young, back then, and not even friends. Not even co-workers. 

The woman before him now asked, “You’re one of the seven birds, aren’t ya?” and shortly after they made their intentions very clear with hands sliding up his thigh and threading through his hair.

The twins were disappointed but understanding when he gently turned them down and excused himself, and it wasn’t that he was too old for this type of thing. He was confident that even after years without practice he could still be an extraordinary lay if he wanted to be, but it wouldn’t honor Julia’s memory to test that. In life and in death he was committed to his wife, none of that “death do us part” nonsense. Death was just another milestone.

But his personal pledge of chastity only extended to his activities with others. His body wasn’t for anybody’s hands but his wife’s, and of course, his own. So there was nothing stopping him from settling down against down pillows in his king sized bed and slipping a hand down the front of his shorts while reminiscing on a particular memory. 

Magnus was nineteen years old, but the beard he’d recently learned to grow let him pass for twenty-five. He was in town for the IPRE mission, in the earliest days before the crew had even become acquainted. It was his first week in a big city al by himself-- Magnus had a dorm room and meetings to attend in the evening, but he didn’t have a curfew or anyone watching over his shoulder. He let himself have a bit of fun. 

It wasn’t his first time drinking, and he was too heavy set to be a lightweight. Still, the occasional beer after a hard day’s work didn’t compare to what a teenager with unlimited freedom and a generous amount of institute provided pocket change could get up to. Magnus was three pints in when he started to feel a little lighter on his feet, and he was nursing his sixth when a pair of warm, slender hands slid up his back and hooked over his shoulder, and he glanced over to find a beautiful elf hanging off of him on one side, a nearly identical individual standing close by. 

The young man at his arm had painted lips and eyelids and shiny blonde hair that curled slightly just over his shoulders. His long pointed ears were pierced, and the wizard’s hat on his head somehow went with the rest of his outfit, which seemed to be layers of loose fitting shirts over skin hugging pants and pirate boots. 

He remembered with a chuckle the tone of the boy’s voice as he said, “Never seen you around here before, handsome. Fresh meat,” and gave Magnus an obvious once over with sharp eyes and a sharper smile. His sister had been shooting him a nearly identical grin, and Magnus could remember looking between them and thinking dumbly-- boobs… no boobs… nice. 

As he’d said to the nice women in the bar earlier than evening, he had a wide range of preferences, and that referred to sex partners just as much as it did alcohol. 

It hadn’t gone very far, only across the room to a suspicious pleather couch in a dark corner of the bar, tucked behind pool tables and next to a rowdy game of foosball. Magnus would have let them do anything they wanted, would have done anything they asked, and he ended up with the boy straddling his lap and the girl’s warm hands massaging his shoulders from behind.

She would lean down every so often to nip at his ear or dig her thumb into a particularly tough knot in his neck, and the boy in his lap kept him plenty distracted with biting kisses and a tongue teasing just inside his lips and hands wandering his chest and tangling in his hair and a nice, solid weight settled in Magnus’s lap. At first Magnus hadn’t been sure what to do with himself, wasn’t sure what was acceptable or where the lines were, and the boy had responded with a scoff that was both amused and impatient as he took Magnus’s hands and placed them right on the swell of his ass. 

Young Magnus had been dizzy from it, overwhelmed and drunk and perfectly content. Present day Magnus was feeling much of the same, relishing the warmth gathering low in his belly and the taste of alcohol in his throat and the soft sheets against his naked skin. 

It hadn’t felt that way in the bar so many years ago. The mixture of alcohol, sex, body heat, and pleather cushions practically swallowing him whole created an oven that cooked him alive, and somehow the girl’s hands were still burning hot through the material of his shirt. At one point, the boy had pressed a bit closer-- chest to chest, their teeth clacking from the unpracticed enthusiasm, the boy’s hands tugging sharply at his hair. Magnus felt the boy’s own hardness press against his own, and in that exact second the girl behind him leaned down and nipped at the shell his ear with more sharpness than any of her previous bites. Magnus had let out a gasp that was more of a moan than anything else, hips stuttering forward, and the boy giggled against his mouth before pulling away. 

“That’s enough,” the boy said, patting him firmly on the cheek and smirking at him. His eyes were a little glazed, cheeks a little flushed, lips a little swollen. He put a hand on Magnus’s chest for balance as he clambered to his feet, and the girl leaned down from behind and pressed a friendly kiss to Magnus’s cheek. 

“Thanks for helping us win a dare, cutie,” she said into his ear, and then in an announcer’s voice farther away she shouted, “Pay up, Greg, you son of a bitch!” 

The twins had been ready to go home after that-- after tracking down their friend and tag-team wrestling twenty gold pieces out of his pocket-- and Magnus had been a little too riled up to do anything else. He was a gentleman, though, so he walked them home when they allowed it. 

It had been a silly coincidence that they lived in the same dorm building at the academy, one that both twins teased him over scathingly, accusing him of stalking and mocking the framed photo of his dog sitting on his bedside table without any real bite in their voices. He’d been a little too hazy to realize that they’d ended up walking him home instead of vice versa, but he’d been coherent enough to finish himself off with his boxers shoved around his thighs and his fist in his mouth to keep quiet. 

Now, in the present, Magnus didn’t bother to silence himself as he came, hips bucking up into the air and spunk spilling over his fist. He pulled himself off until he was sore and oversensitive, then he wiped his hand clean on that day’s t-shirt like the teenager he was pretending to be. 

He was comfortable enough with them now to get off on that memory without feeling like the world’s biggest pervert, but he remembered his mortification the day after it happened. Magnus had rolled out of bed and chased away a hangover with a few hearty gulps of water. He’d gone to the very first meeting for the IPRE, and he’d been sitting at the conference room table waiting for the meeting to begin when the twins spilled into the room. 

Lup had come in first, wearing sunglasses and clutching an iced coffee. She gasped, and said, “Well would ya look at that.” Then louder, over her shoulder, she called out, “Taako, babe, look who’s here!” 

After the meeting ended, Taako had pulled him off to the side and explained none-to-gently a ‘no dating coworkers’ Taaco twins policy, and explained that Fantasy Tequila made him do some crazy shit sometimes. Magnus would learn years later that yes, Taako would do just about anything on a bit of tequila and a dare, and that the twins actually didn’t seem to have any qualms against dating coworkers if Lup and Barry were any indication. 

That was fine, though. Whatever clumsy nervousness had resulted from that evening was pretty thoroughly extinguished after the first cycle, and as time stretched he would come to view the twins as friends and eventually family. They lived in each other’s pockets, shared thousands and thousands of hours in each other’s company, mourned each other’s deaths and comforted the living when such tragedy arose. 

After the century they’d stolen from time, even after years apart, they’d find each other again and now it was no longer strange to share space and time and even beds during particular evenings. But never sex. Never anything like that again, because Magnus had a promise to keep and the twins both had other people to wrap in their arms.

Nights of sleep and platonic comfort were all they sought from each other on those seldom occasions, and Magnus definitely didn’t tear up from the overwhelming wave of affection for his family that washed through him. He may have been getting old, but he wasn’t getting soft.

 

 

Magnus had a chance to prove that statement to himself a mere few weeks later. He really ought to make a mental note to stay out of bars. He didn’t have the energy for this shit anymore. 

And listen, Magnus understands the limits of the human race, even if his friends don’t. He understands that his friends were going to outlive him by hundreds and hundreds of years naturally, and that at this rate the fuckers probably weren’t going to die at all. He understands that during their years with a Bureau he may have been the rowdiest of them all, but God damn it he was getting old. Too old for this shit certainly, and now he honestly got what Merle was complaining about back in the day every time Magnus dragged Taako and him headlong into danger, or on every adventure on the Starblaster, even. 

He got it, he really did, because when the sounds of an obvious tussle broke out behind him and Merle’s voice shouted, “Hey, a little help over here, buddy?” his first reaction was to groan. If he was too old for this shit, it should have been enough to do Merle in for good. 

His second reaction was to get up with sore knees and an aching back and throw himself into the fray. 

It felt good in a way, just a bare knuckle, good old-fashioned brawl. No spell slots, no rolling for initiative, just adrenaline singing in his blood as he threw fists and tore pool cues out of attacker’s hands and picked opponents up just to throw them like a weapon at someone else. He fought, and he was one fire. Sore knees and aching back going quiet, joints complacent and a smile on his face. 

When the doors flew open and guards stormed in, Magnus was quick to grab Merle and dart out the back, and the two of them disappeared down dark streets snickering like school boys and kicking stones down their path. 

It wasn’t until nearly an hour later, when they turned up at the Taaco-Bluejeans household, that Magnus’s head started to catch on to what his body was up to. His body was not pleased with him. His back twinged, his knee was tight enough to make him limp, and his shoulder was screaming. He didn’t know what had been wrong with his punches to make his wrists sore, but that was definitely new. At least his bruised knuckles were a familiar comfort. 

“I swear, you are just trying to hurt yourselves,” Taako scolded from the kitchen, where he threatened them every few moments with a wooden spoon between stirring a pot and taste testing to add spices. “You can’t all be young like me, you old men ought to learn to slow down and take it easy. Take up knitting. Adopt a cat. Old person activities, gentlemen.” 

Taako talked as if he himself didn’t have a limp from their time in Wonderland, didn’t have scars and mannerisms and the slightest lines to his face that showed he was just as old as they were, difference in lifespan or not. Magnus rolled his eyes and took the water Kravitz offered him with a grateful grin, while he waited for Merle’s healing spell to take its full affect. 

Barry and Lup, the ageless assholes that they were, sat at the table nearby and snickered to each other over a slow and pointless game of blackjack. Angus was dealing and despite the insurmountable amount of intelligence Lup and Barry contained, the boy was absolutely wiping the floor with them. Or, the man, perhaps. In the time they’d known him he’d quickly gone from pipsqueak to awkward teenager to reserved young man. He’d gotten a teaching position far younger than anyone ought to be able to, and he’d made a good life for himself.

Nice as it was to have another human with normal aging milestones around-- now that Barry had gone ghost and abandoned him-- Angus was also a striking reminder that Magnus was getting old. He’d celebrated his twenty-ninth birthday a few months ago, and Magnus wasn’t sure he could handle it. If it hadn’t been for the boy, for his own reflections in the mirror, or for his monthly coffee dates with Lucretia, he could have fooled himself into believing them all to be lost in time.

“I’m telling you, you act like you used to be an adventurer or something,” Taako scoffed with an air of faux-annoyance.

“Used to be?” Merle gasped, while Kravitz plastered himself to Taako’s back and hid a chuckle against Taako’s shoulder. Taako huffed, and Merle stood up on his chair to shake his fist. 

“Listen here, boy, this old man here is just as much of a badass as I was with the bureau. We can’t all be beautiful forever, excuse me.” 

“Maybe we ought to go out into the field and challenge that statement,” Taako shot back, corners of his mouth quirked up at the compliment. 

“Oh gods…” all three reapers in the room muttered in unison, and Magnus crowed with laughter. 

Taako swatted at his husband and sent a scathing glare to his sister. He demanded, “What the fuck does that mean, Barold!?” while Merle announced, “That’s it! It’s official! We’re going back on the road!” 

Merle made a mental note to stock up on healing potions before they did that, and maybe purchase a new knee brace while he was at it. He’d have to sharpen Rail Splitter and dust the cobwebs off his shield, but he was more than ready to take a stab at the action again. 

“If you die,” Lup threatened, pointing a stern finger at each of them in turn, “I will have Barry bring you back just so I can kill you.” 

Magnus hauled himself out of his chair to refill his water, felt his joints creak at the effort. You can’t do this, boy, his body was saying, sounding suspiciously like Merle. But Magnus looked around the room at his family and felt a youthful sort of pride fill him to the brim. 

Yes you can, it told him, and he had to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment if you want, please, I'm begging you, for the sake of Our Lady (The Raven Queen/ Istus/ Mother Mary-- yknow, whatever floats your boat).


End file.
